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Sabrina Carpenter mistook a fan’s celebratory, cultural cry for a “yodel” during her Coachella headlining set
“I don’t like it,” the singer said during her April 10 performance
Several social media users have since identified the fan’s cry as “zaghrouta,” a traditional Arabic expression of joy and celebration
Sabrina Carpenter confused a fan’s cultural cry for a yodel in a now-viral moment from her headlining Coachella set.
The interaction took place after a fan made a loud sound during the singer’s performance at the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., on Friday, April 10.
Carpenter, 25, was sitting at a piano and preparing to introduce her song “We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night” when she acknowledged the fan.
“I think I heard someone yodel. Is that what you’re doing?” she asked, then stating, “I don’t like it.”
Sabrina Carpenter performs at Coachella 2026
Credit: Coachella/Youtube
As the Coachella attendee told Carpenter, “It’s my culture,” the singer replied, “That’s your culture, is yodeling?”
“It’s a call! It’s a call of celebration!” the crowd member then explained, before Carpenter responded, “Is this Burning Man? What’s going on? This is weird.”
Clips of the moment from Carpenter’s set have since gained millions of views on X, where several social media users identified the fan’s cultural call as “zaghrouta” — a traditional Arabic expression of joy and celebration, commonly used at weddings and parties.
The traditional cry is “a form of a long, wavering, high-pitched vocal sound representing trills of joy,” according to nonprofit Arab America.
Zaghrouta — which previously made headlines when Shakira incorporated it into her 2020 Super Bowl performance — is “usually used by women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and is commonly performed in weddings, parties, celebrations and sometimes in funerals to honor someone and to express strong emotions,” the cultural organization said.
Several X users took issue with Carpenter’s word choice during the fan interaction, including one who said that calling the cry “weird” was “disrespectful.”
Others, however, pointed out that the “Juno” singer may not have heard everything the fan shouted.
Reps for Carpenter and Coachella did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Saturday, April 10.
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Sabrina Carpenter performs at Coachella 2026
Credit: Coachella/Youtube
Carpenter’s Coachella set marked her first headlining slot, two years after she made her performance debut at the music festival in 2024.
The setlist featured numerous tracks from her latest studio albums, Man’s Best Friend and Short ‘n Sweet, and included several celebrity cameos.
Sam Elliott starred in a short film that opened the performance, while Will Ferrell later cameoed as an electrician and Samuel L. Jackson’s voice acted as a spiritual guide.
Susan Sarandon also portrayed an older version of the “Espresso” singer during an interlude.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com ’
